


dead girls don't have it easy

by Senri



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 19:21:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/422310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein dead Aradia and dead Vriska have an argument, and dead Terezi gives dead Aradia a makeover in the loosest sense of the word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dead girls don't have it easy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stonestrewn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonestrewn/gifts).



> I don't believe this work calls for any content warnings, other than perhaps Vriska being Vriska (that is, entitled and terrible at everything). If it strikes you that some part of this should be warned for, please let me know!

Amongst the first things dead Aradia did besides going round to every corner of her hive and pottering through the digs she had in progress to check if everything was as she remembered it (and of course it was; it made sense, since the whole place was a dream built from memory, and if things weren't just as she remembered that would have been the strange thing) was go down to the greeny waters broken up by rocks at the shore of her island and throw out a line.

She'd fished a long time. Not from wigglerhood, she started later than that, but she'd cut a pole for herself and Sollux would fly her out supplies when he came from the city. He brought her useful things: chocolates, hardware updates, strings and peroxide and soft brushes just the kind she wanted. She used the brushes for putting on make-up and dusting dirt both. And he brought fishhooks. He was never much of one for grubbing! "I'm a fucking programmer AA I need hands clean," he'd say. His enunciation was always a little slushy and in a rush. But he'd go sit on the rocks by her and look out at the gray-green sea, both of them ignoring the voices.

The memory is almost real: she can see Sollux at the edge of her vision, deadeying the horizon. But he is not there. She is Aradia, she is dead, she is alone, she is herself in the quick breaths of the wave and puffs of breathe. That's how she likes it right this second. Maybe in a minute or a few days or a year and a half she'll go find a dead Sollux and say hello again instead of sorry. Right now the water is hers. 

She is not even sure how long she is there alone with her hook disappearing beneath the water when she feels a snag. Aradia pulls the rod up, hup, more out of reflex than interest, and feels resistance. There's no reel on her rod to pull whatever she's caught in, and whatever it is it feels heavy. She has to take the rod one-handed and climb clumsily back over the slick rocks and damp sand with two feet and one hand free. She reaches out with her telekinesis and helps the dead weight along. 

It doesn't seem worth the effort when she finds that her hook and line tangled in some of Vriska's soaked black hair. 

Vriska's water-logged body tilts slow in the waves. It snagged on a rock, maybe - Vriska sure is wearing a lot of cloth, the ultra-orange color burned on the last clouds at sunset. Aradia recognizes her mostly by the one sharp hooked horn and the other with the broken hoop. When she stops pulling Vriska's body turns with the roiling currents. She must not be dead, or not in the sense of being gone, too, but Aradia considers leaving her there until Vriska heaves in the water and lifts her face with strands of black hair garlanding it all over, flails to her feet, stands and screeches.

"Hey. Hey. HEEEEY!" Aradia drops her rod and backs away. Vriska slops forward through the water towards her. "Megido?! HEY! Megido! What the fuck? I get dead and the first person I meet is you? Hey! Lucky again I guess!" 

She had not wanted to meet Vriska again for a long time. Aradia was not sure she wanted to meet Vriska again ever; she backs away, tripping and scratching on the rocks. Her piratical acquaintance highsteps after her. "It's been foreeeeever, Megido! Jeez! Since I saw you and you weren't, like, a monotone borebot, or beating the shit out of me! Hahaha!"

"Go away, Vriska," Aradia says. She's too discombobulated to even think of a quip. Her bottom is wet and her trailing skirts are soaked. She scrabbles up and starts backing up the bluff, Vriska right on after her.

"Hey, come on, don't be like that!" Oceans of tangled black hair whip this way and that as Vriska flings her head back dramatically. "Come ooon, we're totally even now, aren't we? You killed me and all, rememberrrr?" 

"I'll kill you again," Aradia begins, fierce, crouching down so her knees are bent and her hands are fists out in front of her. Maybe she could have her whipkind if she wanted it enough, and even if she didn't she could probably pulp Vriska on the rocks before Vriska could mind-control her, but Vriska just laughs.

"C'mon, Megido, get OVER it! I'm here to tell you I've totally changed! I've put all the, you know, killing stuff behind me. Mom's dead and all, so I don't have to feed her anymore! Boy, we sure have been fighting a long time." She comes on forward while Aradia stands her ground and then Aradia breaks the siege and moves back, up towards her hive again. Her head is thumping. She so desperately wanted just a while to fit herself back into this peaceful spot in the world.

"Vriska - you just do not get it!" She surprises herself bursting out. "I do not want to see you right now! Or anyone! There's a reason I'm here all by myself you know." 

“Hey! I don't know what your deal is, but I'm sorry and all.” Vriska throws her hands up. If she keeps on coming she will walk-chase Aradia all the way back to her hive, and neither of them will ever have broken into a run. Aradia tries to stop her scrambling feet and can't, and then barely can. “Don't you remember that you killed me?” Vriska goes on ranting. “We're even now! We're square, Megido! Why are you still so mad? I'm not mad! I'm not even a little mad, I swear! I just thought, hey, since we're both dead now, maaaybe I could come around and actually expect you to act like a decent troll!” She sniffs. “Rude, your blood color is really showing.”

“You made Sollux kill me, you hurt Tavros, you made Terezi go blind, you don't do anything but HURT people! Even the ones you care about! I AM still mad at you! Do not act like just because you decide everything is okay, I have to agree that everything is okay!”

Aradia liked Vriska, she did, for a long time. Maybe she still likes Vriska under being so mad at her she wants to take Vriska by the horns and bang her face into a wall. But it doesn't mean that Aradia isn't scared when Vriska surges up towards her with her fangs flashing and her eyebrows pulled down mad.

“Stop being so STUPID! Ugh, you are acting just like him, you are being so pathetiiiiic! All I ever did was try to make you two stronger!” Her arms thrash around dramatically, her hair whips back and forth. “Nobody appreciates everything I've done. I can't believe I'm trapped with you rubes for my entire afterlife!” 

Aradia says nothing at all, backing up still towards her hive, with her hands up. Maybe Vriska will get tired and go away now.

Vriska's eyes fasten on her. She jumps up after Aradia again. “And Tavros DESERVED it!”

The plan changes fast, from Aradia trying to get away to Aradia trying to punch Vriska in the face. She doesn't try to throw Vriska away, even if she could. Somehow she wants to really hit the other girl – like she did before, only then Aradia's hand is spinning around the other way and she's beaning herself with her own fist in her own face. Vriska sits on her. “Stop hitting yourself! Haha! Stop hitting yourself!” Aradia punches herself again.

She can't kick Vriska off and she can't fight her with hands. Aradia squints against another punch and then grabs Vriska another way. Suddenly the taller girl is flying off of her, swathed in red streamers of energy and propelled hard into the ground.

That's enough to break Vriska's hold again, let Aradia scramble up - "This is a very redundant fight, you know!" she shouts. "I can do this forever! I'm a time player, remem - "

She slaps herself silly again, and that cuts off the last word. It stings. Aradia clenches her teeth and hits Vriska with a hard slap of power again. Vriska screams like a hurt wiggler.

"Come on, Megido! Why are you still so mad?!"

"I just _am!_ I told you to go away!" It's more complicated than that - Aradia feels sick and tired, the edges of her heart curling in and hardening in place, the insides debrided and raw. Not anger so much but just being exhausted, wrung out. It's so difficult to think about confronting Vriska, to go to the trouble of thinking of all the things she might have to say and do to even start getting through to - her former friend. Her killer. Her victim.

Aradia steps forward with her hands up. She concentrates and coronas of red energy flare into life, cupped in her palms. "I'll kill you." Vriska looks at her and takes a step back. Aradia stays where she is, and then steps forward - Vriska won't listen, otherwise, Aradia can tell that she will have to be so mean if she wants Vriska to listen. "I don't care if we're dead, I'll kill you again. I'll make it worse than you being alive. I'll rip you to pieces and I'll throw you in the ocean.

"So go away."

So she was the more awful of them, Aradia can tell, Vriska stepping back again, her face scrunching up all mad and hurt. Vriska really is such a wiggler. Aradia doesn't even move when Vriska jumps into the air again, blue wings flashing into existence at her back and blurring into motion. What on Alternia has she missed? There's no time to ask now.

"I'll make you sorry, Megido! You'll come try and find me! Then we'll see!"

Vriska breaks up into refracted glimmers of gold light, out of the dream bubble, and Aradia knows she's right: eventually, Aradia will have to come and find her. But it won't be for a while.

She turns her back on the water and runs back to her hive instead. She runs as hard as she can, as fast as she can, oh, she forgot how it was harder to have a flesh-and-blood body than a perfect metal one. Her bloodpusher feels like it might blow up by the time she's at her door but it's a white-out that she wants, throwing the door open and slamming it closed and throwing herself headlong into the peaceful dark of her hive. She leaves dirty footprints in the front room, racing to her sleeping room, the room with the hive, and she throws the door open there and slams it closed again and throws herself on the ground in front of her cocoon and breathes and does nothing, doesn't even lift her head. 

When she raises her head, there's a red-eyed shadow in the dark, sitting with its back against the wall.

Aradia almost punches it right _through_ her wall before she realizes it's Terezi and sits up. "What are you doing here?"

That didn't come out sounding very friendly, she realizes. But she's not really in the mood to be friendly, or to be anything, really.

"I thought I would come visit my friend Miss Sour Cranberry." Terezi nods, smacking her lips. It sounds like she's munching on something. "Besides, I thought I heard you having a fight with our noisy spidergirl associate! I am here to offer you moral support."

"It was wiggler stuff." Slapping and throwing around and punching. Aradia sits up, extending her powers to light her room. When she sees what Terezi is up to it surprises a laugh out of her, and then she doesn't know what to think. “Are you eating my lipstick?"

There's a pause, not even a hangdog pause, where neither of them says anything. Terezi extends her tongue and licks her upper lip, leaving a swipe of Aradia's cranberry-colored make-up behind. "Hehe. You have caught me red-handed! In my defense, it is very delicious." 

Aradia is bemused enough by the sight that she feels a little better for everything. "I hope you didn't eat all of it. I'm not really sure where I can get more, if we're dead."

"My favorite tangleheaded seatroll might be able to go glub at our landlords to make us some presents, but!" Terezi stabs the screwed-out lipstick at the air. It's half gone, with toothmarks impressed in the waxy make-up. "I shall ration it carefully, as we may be forced to go without for some time."

"How did you die?" Aradia asks apropos of nothing.

Terezi's grin is marked up with red gummed on her teeth. "Miss Spidertroll went to take on the final boss all on her own, and he followed her home instead! Hehe... yes, I am very angry at her too. I understand."

Terezi was her good friend and probably still is. Aradia nods her head. "I don't know when I'll want to see her," she admits.

"Karkat died because I let her go to pick a stupid fight," Terezi says. "Me too." 

"Oh." Terezi's expression didn't change, but Aradia hesitates. "Have you seen him?"

Terezi shakes her head and munches another bit off the end of Aradia's lipstick.

"You can stay, if you want," Aradia offers, when she can tell Terezi isn't going to say anything more about it either way. "I'm not going to do anything for a while. I'm not going to go anywhere." She just doesn't want to leave. Like fighting with Vriska, the thought seems like it would take too much energy to bear.

Terezi flops over towards her. Obligingly, after a moment, Aradia lies back down, turning herself over so she can kind of look up into Terezi's sharp face and red eyes. Terezi is balanced up on her elbows. They're not too close, but they can watch each other.

Terezi was always pretty easy to be around. Even when she was teamed up with Vriska and so competitive it was kind of scary - of course, at the time, Aradia was never scared of either of them, Vriska or Terezi. Team Charge could hold its own even if Aradia and Tavros didn't look like much. And they were all just playing a game, anyway.

Terezi props her chin on just one of her hands and reaches down with Aradia's poor, abused lipstick. Aradia blinks, and then doesn't do much at all when Terezi scrawls lipstick across her mouth kind of, and then across her whole face.

Okay, she does a token protest, at least: "Um, you are missing my mouth, you know."

"I am not sure I am qualified to give makeovers anymore," Terezi agrees. The lipstick is slippery with Terezi's spit and chewed down anyway. Aradia can tell just from feeling that sometimes the lipstick slides along without making much of a mark at all, and sometimes leaves globs, where it's uneven now from Terezi chewing on it. 

Aradia stays still and lets her. They're not going anywhere that requires formal dress, after all. She doesn't care enough to fuss.

Eventually, Terezi puts her face down closer to Aradia, sticks out her tongue and licks over some of the makeup she's scribbled onto Aradia's cheeks. Aradia keeps letting her. Terezi doesn't touch her otherwise. It's just quiet, where they stay together in Aradia's dim and cluttered room.


End file.
